AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition Quad Core CPU

Introduction

AMD have been playing catch-up with Intel ever since Intel's Core architecture reared it's not so ugly head. With the X2 range of processors lagging behind their Core2 counterparts and Intel releasing a Quad Core, AMD had to get a chip out and fast.

Unfortunately, they didn't manage fast, but they did manage to get one out. Phenom is a native Quad Core chip which is fantastic, but it's launch was marred by reactively low clock-speeds. The Phenom 9600 we have here today kicks us off at 2.3GHz and there is a 2.4GHz Phenom 9700, a 2.6GHz par - Phenom 9900 as well as a 2.22GHz Phenom 9300.

What's new?

Well the thing is, not a whole lot is actually new with the new CPU. AMD "enthusiasts" will point out the fact that pipeline can cope with about 33% more traffic and that some of the SSE4 (AMD call it the SSE4a), instruction set is now able to be handled by Phenom.

AMD have gone with a three tiered cache level for their Phnom processors with the L3 being labelled "Smartcache", with 512K per core adding up to a total of 2MB L3 cache. This would be hunky-dory, except for the fact that (in very extreme circumstances), there is a bug called the L3 cache Translation Lookup Buffer (TLB) erratum which can cause a system crash. There's a BIOS fix for this, but this means a 10-15% performance drop. Seeing as we didn't use the BIOS fix in this review and during use of the CPU and never once experienced the error I think your fairly safe not worrying about it....unless you need 100% total stability all of the time.

AMD have also pumped up their HyperTransport bus to 2.0GHz from 1.0GHz seen in their previous CPU's.

Some pretty cool new virtualisation features have also been added, which we went through in our Barcelona Article.

Pretty in...Black...

The Phenom AMD supplied us with was the "Black Edition" 9600 with an unlocked multiplier. By all accounts it's a good thing too as rumours are circulating that Phenom's don't overclock too well.

I think really what you all want to know is: how does Phenom get on in our testing?

Features

Some official specs:

The industry's first true Quad core x86 processor

* True quad-core designed from the ground up for better communication between cores. o BENEFIT : Cores can communicate on die rather than on package for better performance

* Silicon feature-set enhancements designed to improve the performance, reliability, and security of existing and future virtualization environments by allowing virtualized applications with direct and rapid access to their allocated memory. o BENEFIT : Helps virtualization software to run more securely and efficiently enabling a better experience when dealing with virtual systems

AMD Cool'n'Quiet™ 2.0 technology

* Enhanced power management features which automatically and instantaneously adjusts performance states and features based on processor performance requirements * For quieter operation and reduced power requirements o BENEFIT : Enables platform designs providing less heat and noise efficient performance and energy usage.

AMD CoolCore™ Technology

* Reduces processor energy consumption by turning off unused parts of the processor. For example, the memory controller can turn off the write logic when reading from memory, helping reduce system power. * Works automatically without the need for drivers or BIOS enablement. * Power can be switched on or off within a single clock cycle, saving energy without comprimised performance. o BENEFIT: Helps users get more efficient performance by dynamically activating or turning off parts of the processor.

Dual Dynamic Power Management™

* Enables more granular power management capabilities to reduce processor energy consumption. * Separate power planes for cores and memory controller, for optimum power consumption and performance, creating more opportunities for power savings within the cores and memory controller. o BENEFIT Helps improve platform efficiency by providing on demand memory performance while still allowing for decreased system power consumption

somehow this makes me think that AMD are rushing things so they dont fall too far behind intel.the interesting fact is that the phenom is not far behind the q6600 in the benchies(well at stock,anyway),so maybe amd are heading in the right direction after all,roll on the AMD 8 core(as per your news post the other day)maybe they are not as far behind as we all thought?

They have the revised ones out soon though and then 45nm ones later this year.

Aslong as they keep on track anyway. A big advantage for AMD would be to release 8core cpus on their AM2+ socket, as for intel you would have to buy a new mobo for nehalem.

I don't think the B3 revision will offer anything special performance-wise, but it may allow for a lower TDP (hopefully) and a fix for the TLB issue. In my opinion AMD won't be able to squeeze that much out of the Phenom architecture in the bid to reduce the performance deficit by means of the new revision. Nahalem will mean a socket change because the memory controller will now reside on-die. It'll be interesting to see how much of a difference that makes in memory bandwidth next time around.

Good review Kemp, but unfortunately AMD doesn't have the goods this time to warrant a purchase. Hopefully the new 45nm procs will provide a much closer performing alternative.

They have the revised ones out soon though and then 45nm ones later this year.

Aslong as they keep on track anyway. A big advantage for AMD would be to release 8core cpus on their AM2+ socket, as for intel you would have to buy a new mobo for nehalem.

I don't think the B3 revision will offer anything special performance-wise, but it may allow for a lower TDP (hopefully) and a fix for the TLB issue. AMD won't be able to sqeeze that much performance out of it's current deficit by means of the new revision. Nahalem will mean a socket change because the memory controller will now reside on-die. It'll be interesting to see how much of a difference that makes in memory bandwidth next time around.

Good review Kemp, but unfortunately AMD doesn't have the goods this time to warrant a purchase. Hopefully the new 45nm procs will provide a much closer performing alternative.

I don`t think the cpu does well in existing boards. It`s fair to say they `work` or work well, but it just seems to me that the boards haven`t been looked at enough.

Take an old board, put in a new cpu. I think the fsb in relation to the cpu timing could be looked at, not entirely sure how, but it could.

It`s fair to say tho, that if u had 2 pc boxes in front of u, with no idea if they had a Q6600 or a Phenom in either, performance-wize I bet it would be hard to distinguish.

How AMD fail to get the price margin right, when they`re obviously doing it to nVidia with gfxcards, it`s tough to comment on. Then Intel aren`t nVidia - even so.

Thanks for the read.

ionicle m8 - that`s definately bad luck. I been AMD for years and found 775 as my own machines very easy.

EDIT: It`s good to point out aswell that Kemp has chosen the correct cpus in which to make the comparisons here. I`ve seen a number of reviews where they pit the phenom against the likes of QX6800 - which is silly both pricewize and market-target.

This review has some weak points.First thing i noticed is the Q6600 frequency used in the review,in the very graphs, which is 2.66Ghz.It actually should be 2.4Ghz and not 2.66,since the 2.66Ghz is the clock of Q6700.Second of all,the difference in results between the 2.3GHz clocked Phenom and 2.66GHz clocked C2Q is really NOT large and is mostly due the difference in the clocks(2.66/2.3=15.6% !!! ).So the author is claiming that the Q6600 working at 15% higher clock(and not its def. clock!) beating the 2.3Ghz Phenom,and with a relatively small margin in a number of tests, is due to better design of the C2Q??This is utterly false.We have 15% lower clocked Phenom not trailing more than 10-15% the Q6600 running at 2.66Ghz and the author is singing praises to the intel chip?This is very amusing!

Also,the author hasn't mentioned if the TLB fix was used in BIOS or not(or did i miss it?sorry if i did).The TLB fix induces the very noticeable penalty in real life usage in range of 6-30%!So having it ON in the bios is doing no favor to Phenom which in desktop usage scenario has practically zero chance of hitting this erratum!All new and some older boards come with the FIX ON by default and can't be tuned in so that the fix is disabled.The only way to properly test Phenom ,if this was the case,is to use the AMD Overdrive utility and change the "Turbo" button to Red(from Green).This turns of the fix(at least for ONE of the cores,this is what I've tested by myself).To turn of the fix completely,one would have to use MSR register editor,which i think is beyond the author's ability to do(no offense),and shouldn't be required from a regular user neither.

Third,the price of Phenom 9600BE is actually somewhat lower(at least in east Europe it is).Lowest i could find Phenom 9600BE was costing 197e and the Q6600 was around 214/213e!The clock author used in his test(2.66GHz) actually belongs to a lot pricier model Q6700 model.

Last,the OCing potential of this Phenom depends a lot on BIOS settings used,and from reading the author's comment on it i would have to say he is not very much familiar with the settings he should have used to OC this chip..At all.The easiest way was to read the (also pretty bad review) from Xbitlabs which did have one bright point and it was OCing settings needed for Phenom.The settings needed for OCing are very important even if you plan to OC the BE chip.From what I've seen Phenoms(be it BE or regular ones) can go anywhere between 2.4Ghz to 3.1GHz on a good air cooling.Vcore varies a lot and can go from stock to 1.45V.Also the Northbridge/L3 voltage is very important in the OC venture with Phenoms.None of the above were mentioned by the author.

And at the end of my post,to make a small joke in the spirit of the ending lines of OC3D Phenom review:

Of course, I haven't even mentioned 45nm Shangai/Montreal(8 core) yet....

The Q6600 was run at 2.44GHz, I didn't notice the typo on the graph header which I will amend. The test settings state the frequency used though.

I didn't use the fix as stated in the review and the motherboard was left as it was sent to me as standard. If, indeed, this is enabled as standard - then that means that the overwhelming majority of users will have the chip as it is. Let's be honest - on or off it's a fault in the chip

I am familiar with the settings needed to overclock the chip and have read the review, it either wasn't a good chip or was held back.

With all due respect you don't really know how I overclocked the CPU, let alone what my knowledge is in general. I didn't detail how overclocking was performed as the review's intention was not to write an overclocking guide.

I am actually a fan of AMD but there is no way that this chip should get a higher score than it did, unless there's a price cut - and prices are based on the UK price as this is a UK review site.

Intel will be coming out with 8 cores, and if Phenom's anything to go by, a helluva lot sooner than AMD's 8 core chip.

The review reflects the majority of reviews of the chip on the internet, not by design, but because that is the current situation.

Whilst I respect your views, I don't respect the balance of your opinion. The AMD chip is inferior to a similarly priced and clocked Intel chip and that's the message of the review, typo aside

I sincerely hope that AMD step it up with the next release, competition is good

The Q6600 was run at 2.44GHz, I didn't notice the typo on the graph header which I will amend. The test settings state the frequency used though.

Still the def. clock is 2.4Ghz,but ok,that's better than 2.66GHz.

I didn't use the fix as stated in the review and the motherboard was left as it was sent to me as standard. If, indeed, this is enabled as standard - then that means that the overwhelming majority of users will have the chip as it is. Let's be honest - on or off it's a fault in the chip

If you didn't look in the BIOS and tried to find the TLB fix option or tested the chip for the TLB patch then i presume the mobo had it ON.It IS a chip fault but also it can be disabled if you simply run an app. called AOD...

I am familiar with the settings needed to overclock the chip and have read the review, it either wasn't a good chip or was held back

I'm sure you're not a "newb" and i'm sorry if you thought that i implied any such thing.My point was that OCing Phenom is somewhat harder to do than OCing regular X2s or C2D/C2Qs.There are a few key settings that must be adjusted or you will end up with a HT wall or a tiny chip freq. headroom.IN all honesty,2.5Ghz can be achieved with 9500 Phenoms with stock Vcore and stock NB voltage in 5 minutes.

The BIOS revisions do make a huge difference in OCing potential and i think there was the main problem with your system.Most boards only got the good BIOSes quite recently!

With all due respect you don't really know how I overclocked the CPU, let alone what my knowledge is in general. I didn't detail how overclocking was performed as the review's intention was not to write an overclocking guide.

I didn't mean to offend you in any way.Sorry if you read it that way.My point was that the OCing these new chips is a lot harder than any other chip before,and it takes a lot of time and patience to achieve higher clocks.I understand you couldn't sit all day with this one chip and fiddle with the BIOS while pulling your hair since you have other things to do instead.But,the chips are rather new and represent quite a challenge for overclocking.

I am actually a fan of AMD but there is no way that this chip should get a higher score than it did, unless there's a price cut - and prices are based on the UK price as this is a UK review site.

Sorry i couldn't see from the review that you were an AMD fan .I'm not a fan of any company,but i don't like intel (for their business practices).I can see an intel favoring overtone in the whole review and with the flaws i noticed i had to join the forums and leave the comment.

As for the prices,in eastern/Central Europe the prices are the ones i wrote.Not to mention the motherboard cost must be taken into account ,too.

Intel will be coming out with 8 cores, and if Phenom's anything to go by, a helluva lot sooner than AMD's 8 core chip.

I'm not sure if you've been following the latest news,but intel's 8 core version of Nehalem will be built on the 32nm process since the die of 4 core Nehalem is VERY big(250mm2) and connecting the two of those in MCM package will make it around 500mm2..The die shrink will cut this figure to 300-350mm2 and make 8 core a lot more possible.There is a chance that they may try to use the 45nm dies as described above and sell it as a niche product for an insane amount of money,but you can forget this chip for desktop.32nm is the node to watch for if you want 8 Core Nehalem chip.

AMD on the other hand is in the position to make one and they actually announced 8 core Montreal chip for 2H 2009.This will probably be a server only chip with a big 2 dice connected with HT3.0 and using a new G3MX direct memory technology for connecting insane amounts of RDDR3 directly with a chip.

Shanghai,a 45nm K10 chip features both core/uncore(cache) changes and will be faster than K10 Barcelonas per clock,will run at higher clocks than Barcelona will @Q3 and will have lower thermals and power usage.

The review reflects the majority of reviews of the chip on the internet, not by design, but because that is the current situation.

Not majority,just those done in a haste and with small understanding of wth is going on with this chip (and the chip is really weird).TLB erratum,being unable to disable it,how to OC it,power draw figures which are across the board in various reviews,CnQ2 not working on some boards,lockups etc. all make this platform very repelling to the end users.All problems described are mostly early BIOS/boards problems and it is actually AMD's fault since they didn't provide the DVT samples on time for the dBIOS devs to work out the kinks.The situation is a lot better now,but still quite a few mobo makers have a weak support for AM2/+ boards in form of poor BIOSes.

Whilst I respect your views, I don't respect the balance of your opinion. The AMD chip is inferior to a similarly priced and clocked Intel chip and that's the message of the review, typo aside

Sorry if you feel that way,i must disagree.The chip is neither inferior nor more expensive to intel's counterparts.Only thing in which it's weaker is OCing potential.Where are the figures of real world multitasking or video/audio encodings of large scale,where are the professional 3D apps. that support 4 cores( Vray for example).All these are the representatives of usage models the potential quad core buyer will have,and none are done in reviews around the net.I can tell you that people are more interested in those than in SisoftSandra/Everest/3DMarks/TimeDemosInRandom3Dgame/insert any pointless synthetic app here/ .

I understand that you had best intentions while you wrote the review,but i must say i expected more,like i did when i read most others

I sincerely hope that AMD step it up with the next release, competition is good

They did have a hard time launching 10h,but this design is a modular one and the first benefits will be seen with the cheap TriCores (65nm B2s and B3s) and the 45nm Deneb version which will come with 0(zero) and 6MB of L3 cache.The 4 core Deneb with zero L3 will be around 150mm2,and a lot cheaper to produce than any Penryn or Nehalem quad core(around 240-250mm2).These will be chips that will cost 100$ and i bet you a dollar AMD will sell a sh*tload of them in 2009.At the end of 2009 there comes a whole new architecture from AMD,codenamed Bulldozer with a new extensions to the x86 instr. set and a total pipeline redesign.

Sorry if you feel that way,i must disagree.The chip is neither inferior nor more expensive to intel's counterparts.Only thing in which it's weaker is OCing potential.Where are the figures of real world multitasking or video/audio encodings of large scale,where are the professional 3D apps. that support 4 cores( Vray for example).All these are the representatives of usage models the potential quad core buyer will have,and none are done in reviews around the net.I can tell you that people are more interested in those than in SisoftSandra/Everest/3DMarks/TimeDemosInRandom3Dgame/insert any pointless synthetic app here/ .

Other points aside.. This is an overclocking site hence the name "Overclock3d" so as well as performing well at stock one of main factors to a lot of us will be the overclocking potential.. I know its a massive factor in buying a CPU for me.

A fully overclocked Q6600 compared to a fully overclocked comparable Phenom would surpass it in most if not all benches.

As for the benches used in the reviews they do give a good representation of what an overclocking / gaming buyer would be looking for. The time demo's I feel are a great inclusion as it gives you a real idea of what performance the CPU will actually provide in a gaming environment.

Yep since this is an enthusiast gaming website we included all of the tests we think an above-average computer user will use when using this CPU. The multi-threaded benchmarks are trying to portray real life situations that our readers would use them in. I know for a fact that the multi-threaded apps used are making full use of all four cores (CINEBENCH for one). Sure in a server environment things may be different, but that's not the intention of any of our reviews, nor would it be.

The chip is priced the same as a slightly higher clocked and faster Intel chip, that's a pure fact. As I said in the test settings, this is the way I was conducting the review as that's a great price point for CPU entry and that's the current UK consumer choice.

I did read some overclocking guides, along with my own fairly extensive overclocking knowledge and had some time with the chip trying to overclock, but frankly even if I managed to reach ~ 2.9GHz this chip wouldn't anyway near outperform the Q6600 for overclocking which reaches 3.6GHz in 5 minutes with ease. The latest BIOS revision was used, although I will have some more time with the chip for a review of the motherboard I am going to do shortly

Sure AMD have some good looking stuff coming, but right now Intel have a more mature process with a faster architecture (remember again, we're a gaming/overclocking site) and are hitting AMD hard almost at every move. I like AMD almost for pure "underdog"ness, but there's no way that any hardcore overclocker/gamer would consider AMD right now, unless their budget was very limited and even then there's some tough choices to be made.

Price of the board? This is a CPU review, not a platform or motherboard review. The boards not fantastically cheap, although it is decent....comments for another time for sure

I used the AOD program to confirm overclocking and indeed attempt some more (although I generally don't use software for overclocking).

EDIT: I do agree that given more time to work with the CPU I may have had more luck, but the CPU was given far more time than it's Intel rival

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